>> how could they vote against background checks. the six republicans who supported background checks and now changed their mind was it that the changed president and so committed to giving him a defeat you would sacrifice the safety of your constituents? thank you for watching. i'm al sharpton. "hardball" starts right now. >> hot pursuit. this is "hardball." >> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. there have been potentially significant developments in the boston terror investigation today amid a lot of conflicting media reports. hoar here's what we know at this time. investigators have obtained

video, believe it or not, of a person placing a black bag down at the scene of the second blast and then walking away. the footage came from a surveillance photo at a nearby lord & taylor video. this afternoon, the fbi denied reports from other media outlets that an arrest had been made in the case. well, meanwhile, investigators continued to collect forensic evidence from the attack site as they learn more about the bomb that was used. well, nbc news reported that the bomb's triggering mechanism was fairly sophisticated. it included a battery pack and circuit board, both of which were recovered at the scene. there's no indication at this time of any connection to overseas groups. meanwhile, a devastated defeat in washington for gun safety advocates this afternoon. the u.s. senate has voted down the compromised deal on extended background checks put forth by joe manchin and pat toomey.

the vote was 54 for, 46 against. it takes 60 votes to get a bill passed. president obama was joined afterwards by gabby giffords and families of newtown victims and delivered one passionate reaction to today's vote which roughly 40% of the american people believe in something, the senate failed to respond. >> all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for washington. but this effort is not over. >> 90% of the american people support extended background checks and they couldn't get it passed in the representative u.s. senate. let's again with the latest on the investigation up in boston into those bombings. nbc analyst michael leiter was director of the national counterterrorism center and clint van zandt is a profiler.

all of this is a key related, battery pack, circuit board, news about the pressure cooker. a piece of it discovered. so much physical evidence and then the picture taken by the video surveillance camera at lord & ta are lo, we've confirmed, it's a picture of someone putting down a black bag, some sort of shopping bag, and then walking away from the bomb site. >> well, it's been a very good day, chris, and it's interesting as we started this before the information came out, the refrain we're hearing is why do we know so little at this point and the fact is, as we've said over and over, it takes time. now, what you just described is two legs or three-legged stool. you've got the forensic evidence from the blast site. that's helping them understand the bomb and how it was made. potentially you can trace things there. the secon leg of that stool is

the photographic evidence and videotape which is just invaluable and then the third leg of that stool, which thankfully is not being reported on and we don't know about is the other sensitive information that they are collecting from human sources, from cell phones and the like. those three legs of the stool are what are supporting this investigation as it goes forward. now, the unfortunate media reporting about an arrest that didn't happen today doesn't make their work easier. the fbi has very legitimately begged media and others to just take a deep breath and don't report on some of this until we're getting good word. >> clint, we've been working on here at "hardball" and other programs at msnbc and elsewhere is to look at the physical evidence. and let's start with that first leg of the stool, which michael referred to. this kind of thing that we're looking at here. it being looks like a very badly damaged pressure cooker discovered on the roof. this battery pack, what does that tell you in terms of

whether a person placed it there and had time, perhaps a time bomb as we called them. and also the circuit board. what does it all tell you in terms of the way in which someone has careful instructions on how it's built. it can be a very tenacious type of thing. i think the investigators are way ahead. realize, as you've just pointed out, chris, when a bomb goes off, it doesn't just go into cyberspace or disappear into outerspace. these other agencies are available to put this back together. for example, this is a six liter

and remote control toys. each of these is a separate and authorities can say who bought this, who bought that, who bought this? and we can pull all of these together. if we can show one person bought, for example, a battery for a model car and that same person's picture appears anywhere in that crowd, that's a good investigative lead that should help the authorities notwithstanding this media fr frenzy that took place today that can do nothing but hurt an investigation. >> the six liters, that's more than a gallon, and it's filled with bbs and nails and the explosive device and explosive material, how much would that weigh in a pressure cooker? >> about 20 pounds. about 20 pounds. you take that pressure cooker. you fill it with black powder, bbs, nails, other types of

paraphernalia. you put the detonator and batteries and everything else. you have plus or minus a 20-pound device. we're told at least one of these was a pressure cooker. the other has been described off and on as another pressure cooker or a metal type container. but as you pointed out in your show yesterday, somebody had to carry these 20-pound devices in a bag. this is not a pair of running shoes and a t-shirt. this is a 20-pound bomb that should be apparent seeing somebody lug this down the street. >> well, let me ask you about the material at hand here. if it's a battery pack, does that tell you about the detonating, was it done by a remote control like a model airplane that you can fly around with with a remote control? was it controlled by a garage opener? >> one thing i would say the authorities know, they've recovered and they've recovered

the batteries and the wire and it's going to be very obvious the circuitry that was put together and whether that was operated by a cell phone or as you say a garage door opener. of course, a garage door opener is a line of sight. you have to be near that explosive to set it off. a cell phone you could be halfway across the world. so that would be an early part of the investigation. there's a lot of investigation that you simply don't share with the public. you hold that back to use to make sure you've got the right person when you arrest them. >>. >> jonathan, we've got the materials at hand which has been discovered, the pressure cooker, battery pack and circuit board

and i didn't mention a piece of black nylon that was part of the bag. >> the best estimate that we have gotten is if they can track this to where they were sold and who purchased them, that's going to lead us to the suspect. we've seen this in previous investigations in the 1993 world trade center bombing. and as a result they caught the suspects m sa suspects. same theory here. that's part of the investigation and pouring all over the videotapes for leads and that one piece of videotape of a suspect putting down a bag outside the lord & taylor or caught on the lord & taylor surveillance tape is another. again, as pete williams and myself have been reporting all day, there is no suspect. there is no arrest. there is no specific name. now, we've been told that there have been several names out

there that obviously they would want to run them down but we've been told that it's ruled out. the investigation is ongoing, moving forward. the piece of tape is one of many critical pieces that they are using to try to track suspects but right now no arrests. >> tell me how that's done. you're being looking at a piece of video, you enlarge it, try to improve its fidelity, its picture? what do you do? you look at the wanted posters? how do you identify -- do you look through mug shots? how do you find that person? >> the technology has improved tremendously in terms of facial recognition technology and they are using that matching images on video at the scene to any faces that might be in databases and running that to see if there's any sort of match. another way is, okay, here's an

image that we've got. let's go back to others who we know that were at the scene and who were at businesses nearby and show a picture. that would be routine police work that is done. that's many, many aspects and i'm sure there are others that they are not going to talk to us about as they attempt to track down who planted these devices. >> help me here because all the time we're talking about union station or 30th street station in philly or anywhere, there's a big stein and an announcement. why don't they let the people see the person and say, i know this i goo, i know this woman? i assume it's a guy. >> that's part of the debate that's been going on all day today as you look at the mess that went on this afternoon with some of the bad reporting and again i think earlier in the day i think they thought they had a name or a possible i.d., possible and that they have been running that down and i believe they are trying to figure out who is on this tape. >> what do you mean, it didn't

match up with a fugitive or a person with a record. how do they know that it didn't match up with anybody? >> they are still working that. they will know whether that is going to help them or not. it could spook the suspect or some of the co-con spor fors if there are any and tip them off and say they know who they are looking for and perhaps flee. >> jonathan, whoever this group is watching now on msnbc, they know there's a picture of this person. they are already as far away as they can get, right? >> you would think so. if you look at the manhunt that was on and images being released in new york and able to catch him over several days. so a bit of a grain of salt with this. they sit there and assess how

good the quality of that photo is. they are going to have a news conference later tonight and perhaps explain why and how they are handling these images and when they might be putting some out. >> let me go to michael leiter. there have been reports that have been shot down, some perhaps verified to some extent later on in the week. it may turn out that some of this smoke will lead to fire. we've been hearing about a guy with a baseball cap, hood on top of it, pretty much definitive information. are these stories possibly fleetingly true but they don't add up to anything? how do these stories get out there? do you think there's something there? >> i think, chris, this is a long game of telephone. you know, there are a lot of people involved in this investigation, at the fbi, boston police department, various parts of the u.s. government. but when a lot of people get

calls from reporters, even if they are not actually involved, they start talking about what they have heard and then the reporters report something that they have earned and inevitably you get a lot of inconsistencies there. people on the inside are trying to make sure that folks on the outside know that they know something and people on the outside are trying to get a story out and what everybody has to realize is how disruptive this can be to the investigation. we have to remember, we've got a person or people out there who just set off a bomb and killed three people. this is a very dangerous individual or individuals. and the fbi and the police have to do this extremely carefully, so they don't spook the individual, they don't spook the group. so they don't drive this person to more violence, not to mention so they can actually collect evidence so when we ultimately arrest this person, they can be prosecuted. this is a multiple variable equation that the fbi and others

have to work through. >> cliff, your thoughts of what they may be doing with this video right now. i'm sure everybody is like me, we're used to crime stoppers, television, perry mason or whatever, we're used to sherlock holmes and when we find out there's a video of a person that looks like they are putting a bag there after last night focusing on the other video here that showed a bag placed between the storm fence and the gutter there and then seeing the pictures afterwards with the fumes coming out of that bag area and then to find out today there's an actual picture from across that same street from lord & taylor's pointing to a person putting a bag there, you've got to see how we're all looking at this, you know? we're wondering, why isn't this galloping towards a conclusion given this information? >> i think it's galloping. i think there's been a lot of information develop. realize, there are 60 different investigative agencies involved in this, possibly somewhere

within that came this information today that was erroneous. but the bottom line is, the fbi, the other agencies, if they have not already identified the person or persons of interest, are working very hard to. but there's no need to put that photograph out right now if the investigators can do it. chris, once that photograph is out, it goes viral. remember, the sandy hook shooting at the school when they put out the picture of the shooter's brother and all of a sudden everybody thought he was the shooter. richard jewel at the atlanta park -- olympic park bombing. so the investigators, the if. fbi is going to be very careful and the last thing you want to do is break public trust and put out a picture that had nothing to do with it or like a picture earlier today, they showed a man running from the scene. everybody said, he's the guy. he's the guy. it's just one more victim trying to get away from the explosion.

>> well, now we have something hard on the ricin case. just learned this now, pete williams is reporting that two federal officials say a suspect has been arrested in the case of those letters that initially tested positive for ricin. officials identify the subject as kenneth curtis of mississippi and may appear in court later tonight. two letters were intercepted, one to president obama and one to roger wicker. let me go back to you on this, clint. what do you make of this case? there's something about these bombings where they seem to lead to -- it just seems to -- like snakes travel in pairs, we get the ricin case and cases like these. >> he signed the letters, this is kc and i approve this message. that doesn't take a whole lot of

heavy lifting to match up this guy whose name you just said in the initial kc. i think it's logical to find out that it's probably not ricin. it's probably another false positive. in this abundance of caution especially because of boston, you have to take these things serious. was there any connection between the two, likely not. >> i think somebody stirs up the nuts in cases like this because we had anthrax last time that got to talk brokaw and the former leader -- i forget his name. >> tom daschle. >> thank you, michael leiter and thank you clint and jonathan. coming up, we're going to talk to deval patrick. we'll be right back. i don't make any decisions about who to hire

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china studying mat and statistics, was with two friends at the finish line when the bomb went off. there's a picture of her there. one of those friends was injured in the blast. the third was unharmed. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." i'm joined by governor of massachusetts, deval patrick. governor, how do you see the investigation going this evening now that it's two days after? >> well, chris, it's a large, methodical, careful and professional investigation. we've got every imaginable law enforcement agency at the federal, state, and local level. they are working very, very well together under the leadership of the fbi. it is going to take time.

it's a several block crime scene and it's being combed sort of a quarter inch by quarter inch. it's going to be a slow investigation but i think as every hour and day passes, they make progress. >> what do you think is the attitude? you would know it as well as anyone up there, the attitude of the boston people and the massachusetts people about this? do they just feel that they are victims, something bad happened? or is there a sense of anger, if you will, that somebody would do this or a group of would do this? >> well, i think it's a mixture of all of that and more. i think certainly people are shocked, shaken in many, many cases shattered that something like this could happen at a civic ritual like the marathon of which we are so proud and on patriots day, there's frustration that the perpetrators haven't been found but i think people should take the kind of comfort i do from the fact that such a thorough

investigation is under way and folks are so purposeful about it and collaborating and cooperating so well. >> you know, one thing i've noticed about people, the younger generation of this court, it's much of more of a get out in the street, get out because maybe public safety is et abouter, even in cities where it's cold sometimes, places like boston, people like to get out of the house. that's not going to change, is it? >> you know what? we waited a long, long time for a day like this today. it's in the 60s, it's sunny. on my way over here from the statehouse, there were people at outdoor cafes. we are not going to go immediately back to the way we were before this happened. as i said, it has a natural and predictable impact on people's way of thinking about their lives here in the city and in the commonwealth but we are a very resilient people and a very

determined people and we are not -- i think we also understand that if we are -- if we have our sense of security permanently defeated, that whoever did this will have won. we don't intend to let them win. >> let's talk about the cathedral of the holy cross when you have the president and first lady coming. tell me about what role that is going to play in your city's healing. >> well, chris, that's about helping us all heal. in the conversations i've had all day today, when i've been going to hospitals and talking to medical professionals and talking to families and some of their victims, everyone is looking for a way to acknowledge the grace and kindness that people have experienced and that helps us heal from this and so having an interfaith service is very much to that effect and we're delighted that the president is going to come and bring us some words of comfort. >> well, i think it's great.

are you surprised by anything that's happened since this event, in watching the investigation, what has impressed you that we may not have seen on tv? >> you know, i mentioned grace and kindness. there have been so many acts of this that i hear about that don't usually make the news. you know, you saw immediately afterwards the numbers of volunteers who were not necessarily trained medical professionals who ran toward the bomb sites rather than away from it. >> yes. >> who were helping people in need. i've heard from families along the race route who, once the race was stopped, went out and brought in runners, gave them a place and a time to recover, helped them deal with the enormity of what was happening and find their families. there have been so many acts of -- small acts of kindness and i think it reflects so well on our community and those stories

need to be told, too, because they also help us heal. >> the wonderful case of the person who put the tourniquet on the person who lost their lives. thank you for joining us tonight. and we'll be right back. the last four hours... have seen one child fail... to get to the air sickness bag in time. another left his shoes on the plane. his shoes. and a third just simply doesn't want to be here.

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let the good hands reward your safe driving with a deductible that goes away. ♪ deductible rewards. one more way you're in good hands with allstate. ♪ back to "hardball." amid all of the tragedy, it's good to step back and witness all of the signs of support we're seeing from bostonians. one of the most notable, we talked about this last night, the yankee white sox rivalry honoring a truce right from the start. "united we stand" with logos from both teams. between the third and fourth innings, the yankee fans did what was unthinkable, they sang along to the fenway favorite

"sweet caroline." ♪ sweet caroline, good teams never seemed so good ♪ ♪ i've been inclined ♪ to believe there never -- >> that's key to being at the game. anyway, the song was also played at wrigley field, among other ballparks. the milwaukee brewers went a different direction playing the theme song from "cheers," the great sitcom set in a neighborhood bar in boston. part of home was in the dugout. this jersey, look at it there, 617. that's boston's area code and the word "strong." well done. over to late night, stephen

colbe colbert -- >> the people who did this obviously did not know the [ bleep ] of boston. they were founded by the pilgrims, of people so tough, they had to buckle their [ bleep ] hats on. a city that made it through the big dig, a construction project that backed up traffic for 16 years. i mean, there are commuters just getting home now. >> new yorkers and boston obviously have a bit of a competition. oftentimes the two cities accusing each other of various levels of suckatude but it is clearly a sibling rivalry and we are your brothers and sisters in this type of event.

>> boston native dennis, author of several well-known novels including the boston centric gone baby gone summed it up like this. "two different friends texted me the identical message yesterday. they messed with the wrong city. this wasn't a macho sentiment. the point wasn't how we were going to mass in the coffee shops of the south end to figure out how to retaliate. what a bostonian means when he or she says they messed # with the brong city is you don't think." >> the gun safety advocates lost a big one. the compromised deal, which was a good one, extending background checks go down in defeat. we're going to hear from a very passionate president obama in a few minutes. this is "hardball," the place for politics. all stations come over to mission a for a final go.

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welcome back to "hardball." gun safety advocates, people trying to keep guns out of the equally disturbed which you would think would be everyone would have been considered an unimaginable defeat. the u.s. senate has voted down. senator joe manchin and pat toomey put together a bipartisan bill. they hoped it could get past the senate and it didn't. not today. 54 of the 60 votes needed for passage. the message was clear. a minority of senators, mostly republicans, were more afraid

and still are of the nra than they are of the roughly 90% of the american who is support background checks. a short time after the vote, the president stood in the rose garden with newtown families surrounding him and fought back against the bill's opponents. >> but instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. they claimed that it would create some sort of big brother gun registry. even though the bill did the opposite. >> casey uncovers capitol hill on abc news and robert fine man, an msnbc political analyst. kasie, you've been helping me understand which way this is going. it went against the unsafety people. after manchin/toomey went down, assault weapons went down even more so. another vote on gun clips. what did that tell you about a

potential future mood on gun safety, the fact that all three went down today? >> reporter: look, this was expected on the assault weapons and the clips but what i find interesting is the vote on the clips. it got six more votes in the senate than the assault weapons ban did and if you look at the folks different on those, it's folks from out west, democrats in colorado and new mexico. colorado, of course, passed a limit on high-capacity magazines. they've seen a lot of gun violence, aurora happened there. i've been talking to some senators up here, democrats who have said that it's this issue that might really come back to bite some of their colleagues over the years. they say that this clips argument like what happened in newtown where the parents are here saying, listen, if this guy had had to reloud more often than he did, more of our children would have been saved, that's an argument that might resonate with americans going forward than the assault weapons ban. >> yeah. i think howard, just

intuitively, i'm not a hunter. i've shotguns. >> i think it's easier to get confused about the definition of what is an assault rifle and what isn't. >> yeah. >> but a magazine clip is something that a civilian can understand, so to speak. >> right. >> so i think kasie might be right. the fact that all three of these went down the way did, they won the battles today. it's clear they won battles today and the president is going to moiblize and the newtown families are going to have to mobilize for the long haul, for the 2014 election, they are going to have to get in the ball game the way the nra is. this is the way politics is played today, like it or not. that's what they are going to have to do. it's going to get the president in the midterm election and based on the righteous

indignation he showed today. >> the high-water mark for anger about guns and multiround clips and semiautomatics exploited by this crazy person up in newtown should have been the great opportunity to stop the gun crowd and it didn't work. >> i think you're right. and harry reid, even though he volt voted for the assault weapons ban today, he signaled at the very start that it would not fly. >> here's a statement from the nra following the vote on toomey/manchin. it reads in part "this amendment would have criminalized concern private transfers of firearms between honest citizens, requiring lifelong friends, neighbors and some family members to get permission or exercise a fundamental right or face prosecution, as we have noted previously expanding background checks at gun shows or elsewhere. there's due police tea,

obviously. kasie, it seems to me, there's two parts to that. both due police tea. one, this bill carefully written by toomey did exclude when you sell it to a friend, that's excluded from a background check. if your buddy across the street wants your gun, give it to your brother-in-law, none of that has to be checked. why do they lie? and let's stick with that one. why did they lie? >> reporter: that's how the president characterized it, of course. there are some sections of this bill where gun advocates say it raises a sector of some problems for transactions for folks. senator joe manchin didn't want to go as far as to call it a lie in an interview he did with me shortly after the vote. but he did say that, listen, if these folks had read my bill, it doesn't do any of the things that they are claiming that it does. so he -- >> it's like the death panels

all over again. poison a bill by saying things that are untrue, the big lie again. howard -- >> the big lie was the -- the death panel thing was especially the gun registry. >> gun registry. yeah. and the second part of this says it won't work. please listen to this, it's calling loving something to death. in other words, you don't like a bill but then you say, what i really have a problem with this, it won't go far enough. this lie. it's another -- well, whatever you want to call it -- lie is a strong word. they are clearly saying this won't eliminate all gun violence in america so why bother? >> the president had a good answer. if it can save one life, it could save 100, 1,000 it would be worth doing because it was tailored to achieve a purpose without affecting -- >> why have guardrails on bridges? why have a guardrail? a lot of people don't want to jump off the bridge. the president took on the rand pauls of this world. what a disgusting thing he said to the rush limbaughs.

i don't normally have a problem with this guy. he referred to the newtown families lobbying on the hill this way. let's listen. >> i've heard folks say -- >> when i see a father and mothers and them testifying and i know they are coming voluntarily and they want to come and be part of this debate, it still saddens me to see them and i think that in some cases the president has used them as props and that disappoints me. >> here's the president responding to that props line. >> i've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced, a problem, somebody called them. emotional blackmail. are they serious? do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue?

do we think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate? >> kasie, describe if you can what it's like to go around the quarters of capitol hill, the senators, especially, and see these people with the green ribbons. i thought they were very much right to be doing that and they were on their own. they were not brought in by the democratic national committee or anybody. it seems to be odd for a u.s. senator saying we don't like people visiting us on capitol hill who have a particular concern about something. what a strange thing to say for a representative of the people. >> reporter: these folks haven't been saying too much as they have made the rounds here on capitol hill but, you know, quietly when you talk to them in an aside as they've been moving from office to office, they say really this is their initiative. they have representatives with them. they are working with a pr firm, but it's coming from them and they have been extraordinarily powerful spokespeople for themselves. i was in the room when they were

talking with manchin last week before the vote and it was them carrying the message. it was the families who introduced him tonight in the rose garden, it was a family member who gave the address on saturday. so the idea that they are not speaking for themselves in this argument is, i think -- has not been the experience for folks up on capitol hill. >> so rand paul spent his day having interviews in people with the i am rand society and heritage foundation and conservative groups and i thinks it's really disturbing for these people to come up to the hill that have lost their kids. >> how dare they be in the galley. how dare they be in the halls of congress. the members find it extremely annoying that there are ebb manies of public around. they would just prefer to have the halls of the capitol -- but

to organize in show that it's not the people from newtown. >> you used to be able to go to capitol hill, now you have to go through the tourist entrance. we're not citizens anymore. we're tourists and we can be moved through like a crowd through disneyland. it's rotten. it used to be a democratic country in that way. kasie, thank you with the numbers. i hope we have more positive results in the future. thank you, howard, as always. we'll be right back. everybody has different investment objectives, ideas, goals, appetite for risk.

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earlier this morning, senator chuck schumer formally i introduced the immigration reform bill and immigration modernization bill was filed at 2:00 a.m. this morning, and while the bill has key support by both parties, some on the right are calling it amnesty and some on the left say it's unnecessarily harsh. still, president obama is urging the senate to move it and move it forward, acknowledging it's a compromise. i think it might just work and be good law. we'll be right back. welcnew york state,

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we're back. as i said earlier this evening, rarely have i seen this president so passionate and emotional as president obama was this afternoon after the amendment on background checks went down to defeat. remember, this is a minority of the senate rejebting something that an overwhelming majority of americans say they want. an extraordinary speech, i think, by mr. obama and just showing a few seconds doesn't do it justice, so for those who missed it early, catch this. here's more of the president of the united states late today. >> while this compromise didn't contain everything i wanted or everything that these families wanted, it did represent progress. it represented moderation and common sense. that's why 90% of the american people supported it. but instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill.

they claimed that it would create some sort of big brother gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite. this legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry, plain and simple, right there in the text. but that didn't matter. and unfortunately, this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose, because those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners and that, in turn, intimidated a lot of senators. and i talked to several of these senators over the past few weeks. and they are all good people. i know all of them were shocked by tragedies like newtown. and i also understand that they come from states that are strongly pro gun and i've consistently said there are regional differences when it comes to guns. and that both sides have to listen to each other.

but the fact is, most of these senators could not offer any good reason why we wouldn't want to make it harder for criminals and those with severe mental illnesses to buy a gun. there were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this. it came down to politics. the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections. they worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them at anti second amendment, and, obviously, a lot of republicans have that fear, but democrats had that fear, too. and so they caved to the pressure. and they started looking for an excuse, any excuse, to vote no. one common argument i heard was

this legislation wouldn't prevent all future massacres. and that's true. as i said from the start, no single piece of legislation can stop every act of violence and evil. we learned that tragically just two days ago. but if action by congress could have saved one person, one child, a few hundred, a few thousand, if it could have prevented those people from losing their lives to gun violence in the future while preserving our second amendment rights, we had an obligation to try. and this legislation met that test. and too many senators failed theirs. >> that's president obama. boy was that strong. that was a strong reaction to the senate's failure today to pass a measure expanding background checks. we'll be right back after this. [ female announcer ] nature valley protein bars,

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let me finish tonight with this. you know, i have to say that i am constantly impressed by any nbc colleagues around here, they are generous, factual, and professional. they have the ability to take pains, the strength to resist those competitive pressures to beat the other networks. get it right a tad later is always better than getting it early and wrong, don't you think? because getting it wrong isn't news you can use, is it? and pete williams today, wow, didn't just get it right a tad late, he got it right from the start. and here's my advice, if a dozen

reporters are saying "x" and pete says "y," go with "y." he's been the correspondent we wait to hear from because we know what he says is solid or in this imperfect world we live in, as solid as a great reporter can get it. here's to pete and nbc and, of course, us at msnbc for being lucky to have him. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. ♪ good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. thank you for joining us on what is probably simultaneously the most active and the most confusing news day of the year. if you had cable news on tv today, like we did here at 30 rock, or if you were watching your twitter feed or checking in on the internet at all, you saw a lot of r